Funny thing is (Buffy began), there was a chance me and Giles wouldn't get there at all and it's all because of an old friend of yours.

See, Giles and I waited in the school parking lot for a few minutes before we took off, because Angel had to go on foot. Vampires can sprint for a lot longer than people can, but they're not up to superspeed or anything. And right as we were ready to go, Sheriff Lamb pulled up.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked.

"How is that any concern of yours?" Giles asked.

"Trespassing's against the law."

"So's false arrest," I said.

"I am the school librarian," Giles said. "This is one of my students. This is not trespassing for either of us."

"We'll just see about that," Lamb said. "You just stay here while I check."

"We have things to do," Buffy said.

"Not any more, you don't."

I took a step forward, but Giles held a hand out. "No, Buffy."

Lamb looked up. "Were you about to threaten me?"

"No, she wasn't," Giles said. "I was."

"Really?"

"Remember when I made certain that you would not do damage to Miss Mars' car under the guise of 'investigating' whether she'd had anything to do with those brutal murders?"

[Veronica noting, here: The LeBaron was returned intact. Giles' politely worded threats paid off. Not as though I expected otherwise.]

"Yeah," I said, "By the way, how's that investigation going?"

Lambie glared at me, then looked at Giles and said, "Yeah. I remember that," and he definitely sounded pissed about it, too.

"Consider that, then, should you detain us for no good reason," Giles said. I don't see this side of Giles a whole lot, but he sounded like he was ready to tear Lamb's head off.

"I'm not afraid," Lamb said. "Go ahead and go over my head. You really think the Mayor's going to believe a troublemaker like Summers here? Or you?"

"Lambie, Lambie," I said. "I don't think Giles was talking about making a formal protest."

Lamb finally realized what Giles was saying, took a step back, and said, "Do you know who you're talking to?"

"An incompetent police officer who got his job solely because his far-more-competent predecessor was fired for the sin of annoying the wrong people," Giles said. "One who is so little respected that a powerful man in this town is going through the effort of hiring a private security force to do the job he can't. How credible do you believe you are, exactly?"

And then Lambie said, "Okay. I'll let you go for now."

And Giles smiled and said, "Thank you, Sheriff Lamb. Buffy? Shall we?"

In other words, all he'd been doing is giving us a hard time. Veronica, even if he hadn't screwed over your father, I think I'd hate his guts.

[Veronica noting, again. Deputy Lamb is indeed incompetent and corrupt, but he's not a coward. It doesn't take a coward to back down in the face of a threat from Giles, but had he actually thought Giles and Buffy were up to something he wouldn't have let Giles' threats stop him.]

Anyway, Lambie hadn't slowed us down too much – we still had plenty of time to make it to the depot. (We'd actually done that old thing where you synchronize your watches, otherwise Angel would have just had to strain to listen to know when we were attacking, and he had to be on full alert for anyone making a break for it.

We got to the depot in time, but without much time to do anything more than have me and Giles wish each other luck as we scrambled into position. I quickly checked the door to see if it was unlocked. It wasn't.

3, 2, 1 . . .

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . .

I finally heard the windows shatter, counted down from 25, and slammed my weight against the door as hard as I could.

One of the nerdiest-looking vamps I've ever seen – I mean, seriously, the guy looked like Willow could've taken him with one hand tied behind her back – jumped up from a chair where he was reading something and yelled "She's in here" before booking it for the doorway.

He didn't make it. A couple of steps and then I was on him. He said, "I can tell you something!"

I never found out what he could tell me – probably he was just trying to buy his life, not like that'd ever worked before – because two other vamps came running through the doorway.

As one of them growled, "Slayer," I staked the one I was on and sprang to my feet.

[Veronica, noting: That was almost certainly Dalton. Ave atque vale.]

"Yes, that's right," I said. "I'm the Slayer. God, can't you people come up with any original lines?"

There was another scream from the front of the building, so I was thinking that Giles was still getting in some good shots. Must be some dumb vampires not to have moved their bloodthirsty asses away the second the sunlight came pouring in, but you know, except for Angel, Spike and maybe the Master, vamps aren't really known for their intelligence.

The vamps looked at each other, shrugged, and said, "Not really."

Then they charged.

Rookies, both of 'em. I had them dusted in about five seconds.

Another one looked through the doorway, saw me, and yelled out, "Spike! Slayer's over here!" as he ran away.

Okay, maybe some of them did have a brain cell or two.

I ran after him, down a small hallway; these were the offices, obviously. Way in the distance, I could hear the sound of fighting, though it was muffled.

Some of them had tried to run out through the sewers and had found Angel there waiting.

Cool.

Another one jumped me right before I got to the door at the end of the hall – I head him about a half second before he hit me and had just enough time to throw myself forward, so he didn't pin me against the wall like he'd been trying; instead, he knocked me forward and to my left, so I crashed through the door and fell.

I looked up and found myself in the main room of the depot; it was like 100 feet long and the sun lit it up nicely, mostly from the big hole in the front window. About half of the benches were intact; the rest were broken and scattered around the floor. As I sprang to my feet, I saw four vampires; one was favoring an arm and another was limping.

Behind them, I saw Spike. He yelled "Slayer!" angrily.

Yeah, he could pull it off. Don't know why.

"That would be me, Spike," I said.

"What the bleeding hell do you think you're doing?"

"Attacking you," I said. "Really, Spike, this isn't hard."

Then he got serious. "No. It won't be. Boys. Go throw things at the man outside. Try not to get yourselves killed."

"You sure?"

"Are you fucking deaf?" he howled. "I said, go!"

They moved out of the way, to the front of the room, staying away from the sun.

The vampire behind chose to take this opportunity to impress his boss with his initiative, and tried to jump on my back.

I thrust behind me and dusted him in mid-jump. Huh. You never really can be a hundred percent sure you're aiming correctly with a strike like that.

Spike took advantage of the distraction to pick up a broken piece of bench and throw it at my head. I dodged to the side and let it smash into the wall behind me. "Missed," I said.

"A mistake I won't make again."

We circled, getting slowly closer to each other, neither one wanting to be the first to charge in. I kicked a few other benchy things out of the way – tripping over them in the middle of the fight was not exactly the way I wanted to go out.

There were some more sounds of fighting from the back. Angel must've finally climbed out. Couldn't be too many vamps even back thereat this point.

"Any day now," I said. Me and Spike had both been distracted, and really it was time to get back on track.

"In that much of a rush to get dead? Fine."

He jumped.

I could've dodged, but I wasn't here to avoid getting hurt, I was here to kill him – well, him and his looney tune girlfriend.

Where the hell was Dru, anyway?

I didn't have time to figure it out right then, because Spike and I were busy slugging it out with each other. He was real pissed. I mean, more so than normal. As bad as when you threatened Dru's life, back in the church, only then he was calm and angry and now he was real raga.

Because he was so ticked, he wasn't being subtle.

That didn't make it much easier, though, because Spike not being subtle was still better than most vamps who weren't the Master. I had all I could handle.

So did he, though.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the vampires towards the front of the room turn to dust.

Spike jumped on top of one of the benches to dodge a low blow; I kicked the bench out from under him and he fell to the floor. I scrambled to stake him before he could get up, but he was too fast. I caught his right shoulder, but he ripped the stake out of my hands as he twisted away.

We both stood up and faced each other. I heard a familiar voice say, "catch!" I saw something come towards me and caught it instinctively.

Another stake.

Looked quickly, saw Angel.

"Mate," Spike said, "If you came through Dru to get here your lifespan's going to be measured out in seconds."

"Sorry, no." Then, to me, "Want some help?"

"I've got this," I said.

"You haven't backed those words up yet," Spike said.

"Give me time," I said. Then I told Angel, "Go help Giles." I knew we were there to kill Spike and Drusilla, but this was all part of the plan.

Really. You were there.

[Veronica, noting: Yes, and it was. If the other vamps ran, we'd let them go. Killing them was just gravy. If they stuck around and fought, then Buffy was supposed to keep Spike [or Drusilla] busy while Giles and Angel took care of anyone else.]

"I will," he said.

"Need your stake back?"

He smiled slightly. "I think I have this covered."

Then he walked behind me and towards the front of the depot.

Spike said, "Had enough of a break, Slayer?"

"Me? You're the one who called the time out." Angel went over to the other four vamps and simply shoved the first one forward into the sunlight.

"Right. So I did. Time in." And he kicked one of the broken pieces of bench at my legs and tackled me when I jumped to dodge it. I twisted free and kicked him in the kneecap when he tried to jump on top of me again. Then I rolled and quickly stood up, just in time to take a punch to the face.

He didn't let up, shoving me against a column. Since he was limping just a little, I kicked him as hard as I could in the same knee. Find an advantage, take an advantage. Giles – and Merrick, before him – taught me a lot of combat moves, but that's one of the most important: Slaying is about not dying, and one of the best ways to not die is not to treat a fight like it's a boxing match, with rules and stuff. Do whatever it takes to win.

Sure as hell Spike would take advantage of any weakness I showed.

Spike actually yelled, "Ow!" after this second knee-kick, but it was a deliberate ow, like he was trying to make a point.

Could he be faking? I didn't think so. Not that Spike wasn't that smart – well, call it Slayer instinct on my part.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Did I hurt you? Don't worry. It won;t hurt for too much longer."

"Big words," he said. "You do realize I've killed two Slayers." We threw punches at each other that we both easily blocked.

"You know, you've said that. I think you're lying."

"Tell you what. After I make it three, you can tell me if I'm lying or not."

Another punch thrown; this time I dodged, grabbed his arm, and tossed him into the column I'd been backed against, kicking him in the back of the damaged knee and smashing it into the column also. When he turned around I tried to stake him, but he was still a bit too fast; this time I didn't lose the stake, though.

We fought for a few more minutes, not really accomplishing much of anything. I nailed Spike's knee twice more and he was definitely limping when I took a quick look towards the front of the depot, where three –

No, there came a crossbow bolt, right to the heart of the last vampire.

Suddenly the place, which had been so crowded only about ten minutes earlier, had me, and Angel, and Giles – coming through the smashed window –

and Spike.

Angel and Giles came over.

"Gangin' up on me, eh?" he said. "Can't beat me in a fair fight?"

"The object," Giles said, "Is not to win a fair fight; the object is simply to win."

"Right." And Spike made a break for the sewer entrance.

He didn't quite make it. The knee slowed him down. First Giles shot a bolt at him, hitting his leg and knocking him down. Then Angel grabbed him and turned him over. He struggled and kicked, hitting the arm and me in the leg.

He swore. He threatened.

And then he died.

I heard a sound from the back of the depot, but when I went to see what it was, there was no one there.

We searched around for a few minutes – staying together just in case – but didn't find anyone.

And that's when I called you, Veronica. How're thing's going with Aaron Echolls and company?

X X X X X

(Veronica again.)

I didn't bother answering Buffy's question. I was too worried about the obvious thing.

"I notice," I said with dread, "There's one name not in your report."

"And that's why I said almost," Buffy said.

"I knew I didn't like that almost," I said.

I assume you've figured it out by now, but just in case: Spike's dead. Dalton's dead. Twelve nameless, faceless vampire mooks are dead.

So, what name is missing from that list, again?